Tears stream down my face tonight. I cannot stop them no matter how hard I try. I do not try anymore. I do not let them take me to that dark place I have been in. I just let them flow.
Why tears tonight? It is probably because I got my genetic test results back today. We have been waiting on them and although I knew what they were going to say, it was hard reading them. Most people would be excited to see the words “no increased risk”. They confirmed that I am not at a risk for cancer, liver disease or autoimmune diseases. That should be great news, and is for most.
I am different I guess part of me wanted to see there was an increases genetic risk to explain all that I have going on. I could have blamed it on “bad genes”. That did not happen. Instead it just confirmed what we already knew, I got sick from something else, some outside source. I was exposed to poisons and toxins that made me sick.
These toxins can all be found in one place. They are found in the groundwater, soil and surface water of more than 700 military bases, 178 of them are EPA Superfund sites. The same toxins that the US Military has known about since the 1970s. The toxins that were in the water that I drank on NAS Alameda in 1991 and 1992. The same water that millions of US Military and their family drank daily for years and years.
My tears are not just for me. They are for all the others. All the ones that do not have any idea why they are sick. They have no idea why their kids got cancer. They have no idea why they have autoimmune diseases they have never heard of. They had a miscarriage and said “It was just not meant to be”. The people who drank that water are now spread out throughout the country. They have lost contact with each other. They do not realize that they have more in common besides the bases they were stationed at. They are the ones I cry for tonight.
How can this continue? How can we continue to turn a blind eye? How can we pay billions of dollars to clean up and hide a dirty secret, while people die? Is it their hope that we will all die off before we realize what is going on?
My tears are not for me, and neither is my voice. My voice will be used for all the others who are like me and do not realize it yet. My voice will be for those that are sick, dying or already suffered a loss. My tears will hopefully be the last shed over this, but I know they will not be.
Help spread the word. Help those that were poisoned by the toxic water and do not know they have a voice.